


Shot Through The Heart

by Han502653



Series: Heart of the Matter [1]
Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 06:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18516154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Han502653/pseuds/Han502653
Summary: His student hadn’t had that ability before—the Grim Reaper’s scythe—and so he hadn’t realized—he hadn’t realized until the bullet was most of the way to Karasuma—and by then it was to late.Or Karasuma is actually shot by the Reaper.





	Shot Through The Heart

Korosensei hadn’t realized. He just hadn’t known enough information to realize until the tiny bullet was already most of the way to Karasuma. His student hadn’t had that ability before—it was _new._

It was too far—he couldn’t help him in time.

It hit.

 

It didn’t really hurt—not at first. Closer to a needle poking him than a gunshot. He had no idea what was happening until blood was spurting, until his chest felt like it was ripping from the inside out, until he was falling to his knees, until the Reaper was boasting.

He could barely breathe as he desperately held his palm to his chest, blood leaking around his fingers.

He was going to die.

But if he didn’t kill the Reaper—the _students_ would die.

As the Reaper stepped closer he lunged, tackling him back into the water attempting to wrap his arm around his neck—he didn’t have time anymore to take him down—he had to _kill_ him—he had to _break_ his neck.

The Reaper kicked him off. Karasuma gagged and flew back. His vision narrowed significantly as he tried to push himself up. Blood continued to flow down his chest.

The Reaper laughed. “Whoo, you really _are_ a beast aren’t you—but in the end,” he kneeled in front of Karasuma who could barely make out his face anymore, “I’m better—“

BANG!

Karasuma blinked as the Reaper slumped over into the water.

He collapsed soon after.

 

Irina’s gun fell from her hand.

No. No. No. No. NO. NO. NO. NONO. NONONO!

Karasuma—he—and the Reaper—and all the _blood_ and the _water_!

Irina all but jumped down the last few flights of stairs and actually jumped down the last set, ignoring her injuries completely, and scrambled to where Karasuma laid. She flipped him over in a desperate hope he was still breathing before she scrambled to the Reaper’s corpse, patting at his pockets until she found his controller.

She pressed down on the release button and screamed in the general direction of the cage. “Korosensei! Karasuma! Hospital! _Now!”_

Her voice echoed through the vast flood basin and before she even finished the first word Korosensei was in front of her, Karasuma in his tentacles, his hat against his wound and a tentacle wrapped tightly around it in a desperate attempt to slow the bleeding.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. “I’ll take care of the kids,” she told him. “I _promise_.”

He nodded. He was gone.

Irina stared at the blood coating her hands and staining the water at her feet sticky red. Something dripped from her face and she reached up to realize she was crying.

Shakily she stumbled towards the ladder that was the quickest route to the children. Last minute she paused to attempt to wash as much of the blood off as she could in the water—her dress was undeniably stained but thankfully it was black—certainly some of the kids would notice but it wasn’t as bad.

She climbed the ladder—her arm jarred with pain with each rung but she only felt it at a great distance. Everything felt so far away.

_This was her fault._

 

Karasuma awoke. He awoke slowly, distantly, and rather convinced he was in a lot of pain just by how _drugged_ he felt.

There were sounds around him—the beeping of a heart monitor, whispers, shuffling of shoes—he wasn’t sure why he was in a hospital—why he was hurt—his memory spotty and confused.

He remembered the Reaper. He remembered the students trapped. He remembered Irina shooting at him and the ceiling falling. He remembered pulling Irina from the rubble. He remembered the fall into the flood basin and the Reaper throwing a rose.

He had been… _shot_? Maybe?

He didn’t remember a gun—but he didn’t remember much right now.

And the kids… if he was alive then… certainly _they_ would be as well.

Right?

He would have drowned if the flood basin had flooded.

The kids were safe… _good_ …

He fell back to sleep.

 

He woke again—unsure if he had ever even slept—to the sounds of some of his student’s voices.

He forced his eyes open just in time for Isogai to step into the room. The boy noticed his bleary gaze and brightened. “Karasuma-sensei! You’re awake!”

“Barely,” he attempted to say as a joke only for it to come out as a hoarse, barely understandable, mess. He tried to clear his throat only for his chest to burn.

“I’ll get the nurse!” he heard Megu say at a distance and soon he was surrounded by nurses, medical technicians, and even a resident doctor. He blinked blearily even as he tried to answer their questions—and get answers in return.

He _had_ been shot—by a tiny bullet. And it had managed to make it through to his aorta where the blood pressure had made the minor injury much worse extremely quickly. He had lost an extremely dangerous amount of blood.

_He had heard this before… vaguely he could remember the Reaper boasting._

They had managed to suture him up without cracking open his _entire_ ribcage, but the process had damaged his left pectoral and shoulder muscles which would require time to heal.

_Gym would be frustrating for a while—but he couldn’t really care—not with his students safe._

He’d been in and out of consciousness for the last two days— _he didn’t remember any of that_ — but he was healing remarkably quickly and with luck he would be able to leave the hospital soon.

_Good. He needed to get back to class._

Slowey they backed away and dispersed and Isogai poked his head in from where he and the others had retreated to the hall.

“Karasuma-sensei?”

“You can come in,” he croaked with a grimace his throat still dreadfully dry but thankfully more intelligible. “I have questions.”

They filled in—Isogai, Megu, and Kurahashi. All of them were smiling in relief—but he could see traces of worry still on their faces.

“I’m _really_ glad your awake, Karasuma-sensei,” Kurahashi said clasping her hands together.

“Yeah—we all were _really_ worried,” Isogai continued. “We’ve been taking turns visiting in small groups.”

“We would have brought flowers but… _well_ …” Megu finished.

Karasuma grimaced. He was rather done with flowers for the moment himself. The students concern though… it made him feel rather warm.

They were good kids.

“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked as they settled in the seats around his bed. “The last thing I remember is getting kicked… How did you escape? How did…” he trailed off.

_How did he not die?_

The kids looked at each other for a moment before Megu finally looked back to him. “We don’t really know everything but… from what we do—after you were shot Bitch-sensei shot the Reaper—he’s dead. And after that she ran and got the remote to open the cage—yelled for Korosensei to get you to the hospital—which he did—and then led us back to the surface and with Ritsu’s help called the Ministry of Defense to handle things…”

Karasuma allowed his eyes to close, relief flowing through him. Perhaps it would have been better to take him alive but he was relieved to know he couldn’t hurt the students any longer. Irina had come through.

A reliable friend in deed—manipulations aside.

“How is Irina? Her arm?”

The students were silent. He forced open his eyes, concern rolling in his stomach.

“What’s wrong?”

“We… we haven’t seen her… since that night…” Megu explained quietly.

Karasuma’s heart fell slightly. Had Irina fled from shame and guilt? He had hoped she wouldn’t—but wasn’t completely surprised to think she might have.

He wondered if Lovro knew where she was.

“She… Sonokawa says the Ministry of Defense took her in for questioning…” Kurahashi continued her voice also low. “Ritsu couldn’t find anything in a cursory search and was too afraid to dig too deep into the Ministry’s servers in case she was caught. So we don’t know what happened to her after that…”

“Sorry…” Ritsu piped up from Megu’s phone. The girl looked down at her with a sad smile.

“No. It’s not your fault Ritsu.”

“But it’s not _fair_ ,” Kurahashi scowled, crossing her arms. “Yeah she kind of set us up—but she _saved_ us to—and _you_ Karasuma-sensei—and we _forgive_ her!”

“Yeah… Shiro set us up to drown and he wasn’t arrested or whatever,” Isogai admitted looking disgruntled. “Nor was Terasaka punished for helping him.”

“Can you do something about it, Karasuma-sensei?” Kurahashi pleaded.

“Kurahashi—he’s _hurt_ , he probably can’t do much,” Megu scolded quietly and Kurahashi looked down embarrassed.

“Right… sorry…”

Karasuma was only half listening—instead glaring at the ceiling his mind whirling in thought. He had known as soon as he made his choice to put the students’ lives before the target’s death that the consequences afterwards would be messy. But at the time he’d thought he’d be _awake_ to deal with them. To take responsibility. Unconscious instead—Irina had been the one to take the backlash of the failed assassination.

“Ritsu?”

“Yes?” she pipped up.

“Can you get in contact with Sonokawa for me?”

“Of course!”

He had some calls to make.

 

His first glimpse of her was on a monitor. Clad in a tan prison uniform, hair pulled back in a messy braid, and a soft cast on her left arm.

It had taken two more days to get here. A day of raising hell on his phone—calling in favors and pulling strings he’d never thought he’d use or pull—and finally convincing the hospital to allow himself to be discharged, albeit against their probably correct opinion. His left arm immobilized in a sling, his chest nothing but bandages and gauze. It throbbing as he needed his wits too much to take much in the way of medication.

And then another day of raising even more hell directly at the Ministry of Defense and directly at his superiors over both Irina’s whereabouts and the children’s safety. He didn’t _yell_ —to do so would be counterproductive—but he didn’t back down—no matter the excuses given.

Irina had willingly confessed all she had done to the investigators first on the scene, completely and honestly from what he read from the report—from playing bait, to standing by as the children’s lives were threatened (apparently she _hadn’t_ known all along—though she hadn’t _asked_ either), to her deceiving the Reaper and saving him. That hadn’t helped matters. It was obvious she felt guilty for what she had done and she hadn’t fought her imprisonment at all.

But even so—based on the scope of the mission the government had contracted her to do—Irina had done nothing wrong, he argued. She had been trying to kill the target and the government had already supported people whose plans had included using the children as bait.

The reminder that used _as bait_ and _killed_ was different things led to him reminding them that they had personally given him the responsibility and ability to make that call on scene—they couldn’t declare a different protocol since then and enforce it on past events after the fact.

The attempt to deflect—to make him seem bad and fluster him by questioning whether he thought the children _should_ have died to assure the Target’s death—he ignored it, as his thoughts were obvious to both parties, and pushed _his_ point. The government had already hired, and continued to employ, Shiro whose first plan had included putting the children in mortal peril, and second had included torturing and abandoning a child—and then using him as bait once again. To imprison Irina was a double standard.

Their argument changed then, waffling until they fell upon her failure. She had endangered the children with nothing to show about it. Again he reminded them of Shiro—whose plans had failed multiple times already and yet he was walking free.

Someone brought up Takaoka—if Irina should be pardoned, shouldn’t he be. And Karasuma had frowned and reminded them that Takaoka had _stolen_ governmental money, gone rouge, and had planned on refusing to give over the cure anyway—no matter if the children had done as told.

There was some talk on her willingly allowing the Target to escape—he instead refuted them with quotes the Target had given him, himself—he could have escaped but it would have significantly harmed the children. A last ditch effort of course, but one he would have used should it had become necessary. Even if she had left him in there after the Reaper’s death, there had been no way to remove the children but not the target—and eventually he would have made a way out if only for the children’s sake.

Additionally the Target was getting tired of the danger the children were in—if they didn’t find a way to limit that—there was a good chance there would be repercussion. And not only limited to the students boycotting the classroom like their request said.

In all it had been a long, grueling day, but eventually he had won. The children’s request was accepted—though he was concerned with this new project his superior had mentioned—and he was led to Irina to set her free.

These were the cells in one of the lowest basements of the Ministry of Defense. Cells that officially didn’t exist. They were where people who needed to disappear went. People the government couldn’t admit existed but who had still broken the law or otherwise was being a problem. And they couldn’t admit they had hired an assassin—let alone one to kill a monster that didn’t official exist.

So this was where Irina had gone.

The cells here were small, just barely fitting a bed and a small sliver of floor space next to it. On the same wall of the door he knew was a toilet—just out of the shot of the camera that watched over the prisoners twenty-four seven. Technically they had some brief privacy, but any inmates that spent more than a few minutes off camera would soon be warned through intercom—and if they still disregarded that, by armed guard coming into the room.

Irina sat on the bed, her knees pulled up to her chest and her casted arm pressed against the cell wall in an almost protective manner. She was biting at her thumb and staring blankly at the door, looking both extremely vulnerable and carefully closed off all at once.

He nodded to the head guard on duty and he turned off her camera and opened the door that led to the hall the cells branched off from. Sonokawa followed in his wake with Irina’s hoodie and sweats that he’d had her collect from the school.

Irina startled and nearly fell over as the door opened. Her eyes went wide and Karasuma could see the relief pass through them as she realized who she was seeing.

“Karasuma! You’re okay! They wouldn’t tell me if—” As she was talking he stepped into the room, the door closing behind him, and then stumbled as his head lurched. Irina’s arms were around him before he could steady himself and they quickly urged him to turn so he could sit down on the bed.

“You’re still _hurt!_ ” He heard her shrilly realize as his vision came back. “You should be _hospitalized_ —why the _hell_ are you _here_?” she snapped at him and he almost smiled.

His eyes fell on her hands as she helped him sit on her bed. The paint of her nails had chipped significantly, and the nails itself had been chewed down to the wick. Her thumbs were worse, raw and red. He looked up to her disproving eyes. They were deeply ringed by bags and her brow had a noticeable wrinkle.

She went to pull away as he settled but he grasped her good hand with his. She froze instantly.

“I _told_ you, Irina,” he said making a point of looking her in the eyes. “The children and I—we _need_ you in our world.”

Her eyes went wide darting this way and that as her face flushed. She didn’t seem to know what to do with his statement and he gave her a few moments before pulling on her hand to regain her attention. “I’ve spoken with my superiors—you’re free to leave.” _To come back to the school_ —he left unsaid.

Her eyes went glassy and he would almost swear he saw her lip tremble. Her gazw darted down—it took him a moment but he realized she was looking at his cheek—where her shot had grazed him and gauze still stood—before they darted back to his. “But… But I… I almost…”

“You made a mistake,” he agreed squeezing her hand. “But how can you make up for it _here_.” He stood, Irina backed away the few inches she could, her back hitting the wall behind her—their hands still clasped. “The students miss you—they were worried.”

She stared at him—her eyes locked with his—wide and far more open than he had ever seen on her before and then she ducked her head bashfully.

_“Oh…”_

“Sonokawa is outside with clothes for you—she can help you change,” he told her quietly, finally pulling his hand away. “They’ve turned your camera off.”

“Don’t really care,” she mumbled automatically as he turned to leave. He reached out to knock on the door—so Sonokawa would know to open it—and just managed, only to stumble again as his head rushed and a great pain shot through his chest. He gasped and would have fallen straight onto the toilet if Irina’s arms hadn’t suddenly been around him again.

He blinked Sonokawa’s worried face into focus as he was pulled onto the bed. She stood frozen in the doorframe—Irina’s clothes hugged to her chest.

“ _Fine!_ ” Irina snapped from behind him. “I’ll come back to the school—but _you_ have to go back to the hospital. _Jesus Christ_ , I would have been _fine_ for a couple of weeks—“ she trailed off into a language Karasuma didn’t know and he almost laughed from the whiplash and pure exhaustion, though thought better of it as his chest throbbed again. He could see Sonokawa hide her mouth and he suspected a smile.

“Then let me—” he tried to get up only to be stopped by a forceful push down on his good shoulder. It still hurt like hell and he hissed as he followed the motion.

“Ahh! Sorry! Sorry!” Irina babbled before catching herself. “—I mean— _No! Stay_. Just keep your eyes closed or whatever, I don’t care. You’d probably pass out if left alone—crack open your head.” She continued to mumble as she reached for her clothing from Sonokawa—who was definitely smiling amusedly now—and Karasuma didn’t bother fighting it—suddenly utterly exhausted and drained. Irina was probably right—he should go back to the hospital.

He closed his eyes and leaned against the wall and that may have been a mistake—his exhaustion suddenly overpowering. He dozed as he vaguely heard clothes ruffle behind him, and voices talk is quiet murmurs.

“Did he fall asleep?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised—he only woke up two days ago—and he spent all day yesterday on calls and all day today in meetings with his superiors.”

“Really…?” Irina asked in a small voice. “ _Idiot.”_

Sokokawa laughed lightly. “I’m just glad you convinced him to go to the hospital—Tsuruka and I tried to keep him there—to take his place here—but he refused to listen.”

“I convinced him? I doubt that.”

“No… I think he’ll listen to you.”

Irina didn’t say anything for a long moment and then he felt a hand on his good shoulder.

“C’mon sleeping beauty,” she murmured as he forced his eyes open despite every bone in his body demanding he crash. “You’re the one who wanted me out of here right away.”

He grunted and allowed her to help him to his feet before he pulled himself together—if only until he was out of the building—and lead the way out of the room and out of this place.

Irina followed him.

Everything was back to right.

**Author's Note:**

> First posted Assassination Classroom work--though I have been picking at a bigger work that I may or many not post soon--A Irina and Karasuma focused work because I always obsess over side characters...
> 
> I hope everyone enjoys!


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